Harry and Fulton Gordon Property

The Gordon Property is a site of one of the first residential subdivisions along the historic route one corridor in North Laurel, Maryland.

"North Laurel" streets over modern North Laurel map
Harry and Fulton Gordon Property
Original Route One stone wall in 2015
Nearest cityNorth Laurel, Maryland
Coordinates39°06′24.0″N 76°50′26.7″W
Built1905
Architectural style(s)American Foursquare
Location of Harry and Fulton Gordon Property in Maryland

Prior to the industrial settlements of mills along the Patuxent river. The Gordon property was patented as part of Alexander and Absolute Warfield's estate "Warfield's Range", which was resurveyed as "Sappington's Sweep" as part of a 1731 inheritance to Thomas Sappington from his grandfather Thomas Rutland.[1] What later became Route 1 was built along the property in 1749 and was operated as a turnpike from 1820 to 1865. In 1870, John and Elizabeth Water sold their interest in Sappington's sweep to William and Mary Cissel in 1890. The property was sold the same year for $35,000 to brothers Harry D. and Fulton R. Gordon from Bailey's Crossroads, who subdivided a tract on the Howard county side of the Patuxent river to form "North Laurel".[2][3] The business office for the development was operated out of an office on 918F Street in Washington as Gordon & Bro, marketing real estate in the "suburbs" between Baltimore and Washington.[4] By 1894, the Gordon brothers sold a portion of "North Laurel" for $64,000 to the Key Brothers & Company to finance the purchase of the Lincoln Hotel in Washington D.C. Fulton Gordon divorced shortly afterward and declared himself broke.[5][6] The brothers built an American Foursquare on "Lot 10" prior to 1905 sitting prominently along route one with a large stone retaining wall.[7] The house remained in their name until the late 1930s while the brothers developed land that would become Chevy Chase, Maryland. Land subdivision would be a booming business a century later, the "smart growth" features of tightly clustered lots featuring access to light rail services, walkable community and the county's first traffic circles remained largely undeveloped until the 1960s with some lots vacant today. Fulton R. Gordon was quoted as saying if the land had been given to him "I'd have been robbed".[8]

Present

The Gordon house property is currently operated as McMillan Marine.

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See also

North Laurel, Maryland

References
  1. Joshua Dorsey Warfield. The founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland. p. 378.
  2. Henry Brown Floyd Macfarland. District of Columbia: concise biographies. p. 183.
  3. "HO-819" (PDF). Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  4. R.l. Polk & Co.S Baltimore City Directory for 1892. 1892. p. 524.
  5. "SALE OF HOTEL LINCOLN.: Col. Duffy Closes a Deal with Fulton R. Gordon and Retires from Business". The Washington Post. 9 January 1894.
  6. "Fulton R. Gordon Pleads Poverty". The Washington Post. 13 October 1894.
  7. "ELOPED WITH GORDON: Miss Cora Hart Left Home to Go to a Concert. WERE MARRIED AT ELLICOTT CITY The Former Proprietor of the Hotel Lincoln Runs Away with the Only Daughter of a War Department Clerk-Parents Discouraged the Courtship-Recently Divorced After a Sensational Fight in Local Courts-His Mother Did Not Know of It. The Acquaintance. They May Not Return. The Gordon Divorce Case. MARRIED AT ELLICOTT CITY. The Eloping Pair the Principals to a Midnight Ceremony". The Washington Post. 8 July 1895.
  8. "Fulton Gordon; Made Fortune In Land Sales". The Washington Post. 15 July 1952.
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